Matthew 3:13-17

Messiah Arrives

By Johnny Tatum

 

PART 2: EXAMPLE OR IDENTIFICATION?

A Question That Is Often Answered Incorrectly:

Is Messiah Jesus Our Example?

I like to indulge the flesh by listening to preachers attempt to teach that Messiah Jesus is always our example. That topic will exhort for a while, and then the preachers will always get bogged down (hindered).

My favorite flesh indulgence (see Esther, An Allegory) is hearing them teach from the book of Matthew that Messiah Jesus is our example -- Let Jesus be our example -- meaning:

Well, okay. We can sort of…

No we will NOT do that; however, it also means that in your mind you CANNOT commit adultery. Uh-oh! Well we will work on that one.

Yes, we can fake that one for a while.

At that point you hear a lot of great theologians begin to stammer and stumble on their words. Why? Because perfect means complete and mature. Yes, Messiah Jesus said:

You are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).

It is impossible for anybody but Messiah Jesus to do so. Time for our friends to stammer again [Well uh, uh…]!

 

Can Messiah Jesus be our example? In some ways, yes. That is the point of the next passage about the temptation (see Matthew 4:1-11). In some ways He can be our example.

Was Messiah Jesus our example at His baptism? Was He an example to the crowd there? If He was, then that was a funny (odd) way to be an example. If a person is an example (one who models or patterns behavior), he goes first. It is very clear that the baptism was going on and then, right in the middle of it, Messiah Jesus comes in. He was NOT leading the way.

He was NOT baptized for an example to those from Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the district around the Jordan; AND, He was NOT baptized for our example.

 

There are plenty of verses in the Bible to show why we should be baptized. This is not one, and here is the reason…

15b "for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness."

Messiah Jesus wants John the Baptizer to baptize Him even though it is ridiculous, because John the Baptizer is a sinner and Messiah Jesus is the eternal Word. He said Let us do it. Why? Because it fulfills all righteousness.

The central question of this passage: How could this be?

How is it letting John the Baptizer baptize Messiah Jesus fulfills all righteousness?

Notice: It says ALL righteousness.

 

Identifying with the Riff Raff

First, we have to clarify:

Messiah Jesus was NOT baptized as our example; He was baptized as our substitute.

He was NOT baptized so we will follow Him; He was baptized so He could identify with us.

And what an identification it is!

 

Let us think about that scene again. Maybe more than a thousand sinners are there at the same time, including:

Of all those people, with whom did Messiah Jesus come and identify? The riff raff.

They were coming in to be baptized.

So what did He do?

Messiah Jesus went in to be baptized -- not as their example, but -- to identify with them.

The riff raff were being baptized and He identifies with them, so He will be baptized.

 

Messiah Jesus tells John Let us do it. John gives up, and Matthew says…

Then he permitted Him.

Note: Of the original texts, there are some that have all capitals and some that have no capitals. However, there was no particular capitalization of words to make a point. So the editors have chosen to put the word he in a lower case and the word Him in an upper case. They made the correct choice.

What an amazing sentence!

John the Baptizer ALLOWED Him?

John the Baptizer ALLOWED the King?

What a picture!

John is letting Messiah Jesus be baptized by him. Again, the key word is let, meaning not that He is our example, but that He is our substitute. Here is the difference:

If Messiah Jesus is our example, then we have to come up to where He is. Since Messiah Jesus is our substitute, He came down to where we are.

In both "identification" and "example" there is a meeting point, but look at the different perspective!

 

Resistance from the World

Letting Messiah Jesus be his substitute was difficult for John to do; John resisted. The world resists Messiah Jesus as well, not as an example -- not as a great teacher -- but as being A SUBSTITUTE.

If the world were seeing Messiah Jesus as an example, they would have no problem. In fact, if the message of Christianity were that Messiah Jesus is our example, there would be no problem.

Application: Actually that is why most main stream Protestant messages do not offend anybody, because they are teaching Messiah Jesus as an example. The world never has a problem with that. However, the world has a problem with the individuals who say Messiah Jesus is our substitute.

 

Illustration:

No Problem for the Muslims or the World

There is no problem for the world with a [Christian] religion that says Jesus is our example. In fact, if you ask a Muslim to name two people who would be good examples for us from all history, they will always say Mohammed first. And then it is one of two; it is either Mary or Jesus. But Jesus is ALWAYS in the top three people named as a good example. And this is for a Muslim!

 

If we are preaching Messiah Jesus as an example, then the world will not mind that. However, they HATE it when we say Let Him be your substitute. And the world hates it when Messiah Jesus says:

Let ME be your Substitute.

The world hates that. Why? It is humiliating. That means that there is nothing we can do to improve ourselves; there is no hope.

 

Illustration:

"Play Ball"

To me, it would be like a baseball player who cannot just quite cut it (succeed). No matter how hard he works on everything -- his fielding, his hitting, his pitching, his throwing, and his bunting -- constantly, he can never achieve team status. The manager keeps working with him; he just cannot do it.

Finally, the manager says I have a solution, and there is only one solution, where you can be on the team. You sit on the bench, and Mickey Mantle (a great American baseball player) will come, put on your uniform, and play in your place. That is the only way. How humiliating that would be! That might be humiliating, but that is the only way the baseball player can make the team.

That is what the Substitution of Messiah Jesus says to the world:

There is nothing you can do. You can work as hard as you like, and your only hope for making the Kingdom of God team is to let Messiah Jesus be Your Substitute!

 

Everybody struggles with letting Messiah Jesus be his or her substitute, even John the Baptizer. However, John let Him do it.

16 And after being baptized, Jesus went up immediately from the water;

The word immediately struck me because it is a word that Mark (a disciple of Messiah Jesus) always uses, but Matthew does not very often. Why did Matthew add this detail, or why did he not just say After being baptized, Jesus went up from the water? Why did he add immediately as a contrast?

Consider the description of the other baptisms in the same chapter:

They were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they were confessing their sins. (Matthew 3:6)

See the difference? Everybody else is going into the water. While they are in the water they are confessing their sins, then they come out. Messiah Jesus goes into the water and then right back out. Obviously, He had nothing to say (confess) because He was not a sinner. The point is that, amazingly:

Messiah Jesus identified Himself with sinners!

What is really amazing is to go back further when the eternal Word incarnated Himself as a human being with all of the limitations of that body. He subjected Himself to the sufferings of living in a fallen world, including hunger, thirst and need.

That is amazing enough. However, what is even more amazing is that when He became a human being He did not identify Himself with the best people. He identified Himself with the lowest people, and He was NOT ashamed.

 

Exactly What Is Identification?

Identification does NOT mean that Messiah Jesus interacted with sinners, though He did. In fact, He interacted with the lowest people. Undoubtedly, we would not be caught dead (an extremely undesirable position) with some of the people that He fellowshipped (hung out) with. And Messiah Jesus was not the least bit concerned about people getting wrong ideas about Him or about being misunderstood. But that interaction is not what is meant by identification.

When the world looks at the lowest of the low, Messiah Jesus puts Himself in the middle of the crowd.

He does NOT say I am a sinner, but He does say:

Whatever you think about these people, I am one of them.

That is a big difference.

Note: The only time that being an example can work is if there is identification with which to begin.

 

Illustration:

Identification Is Very Powerful

In the early 1700s, a group of young people from the Moravian Church (a Protestant denomination founded by emigrants from what is now Czechoslovakia) went to the West Indies to witness to the natives. When they got there they realized they had no opportunity to even talk to the West Indians. Apparently, the slave owners in the West Indies did not want all of these new fangled ideas about freedom and all of this weird stuff about Christianity to be heard by their slaves. So the owners did not permit the young people to have any contact with the West Indians whatsoever.

However, the Moravians found a way out. Do you know what they did? They sold themselves into slavery for 25 years. That was their only option -- to be one of the slaves. Those 25-year-olds gave up 25 years of their lives to be slaves so they could work side by side with the West Indians to witness to them. The young people did not say West Indians look at us as your example; they identified with them.

That is powerful. On the other hand, those Moravians -- great godly people -- were sinners. And they were just identifying with other sinners.

 

Messiah Jesus was the eternal Word and He was sinless, so He was the highest of creation.

That is what we know from Colossians; He is above everything and He put Himself at the very lowest:

He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him whether things on earth or things in heaven. And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach. (Colossians 1:17-22)

And He said:

Yes, I am in a world of sinners and I am not a sinner, but I am one with them.

 

Next:

Matthew 3:13-17, PART 3: A GREAT DOUBLE TRADE FOR ME!

 

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